A custom-made electric guitar played by the late John Lennon and George Harrison of the Beatles sold at a New York auction on Saturday for $408,000 US, said officials with the company behind the event.

The semi-hollow-body guitar, manufactured by the VOX company, was sold to an unidentified U.S. buyer at the "Music Icons" event organized by Beverly Hills, California-based Julien's Auctions and held at the Hard Rock Cafe in Manhattan.

Julien's said previously it expected the guitar, which was the centerpiece of Saturday's sale, to fetch between $200,000 and $300,000.

Harrison played the instrument, distinguished by two symmetrical flared shoulders on the upper body, while practicing I Am The Walrus, and Lennon used it in a video session for the song Hello, Goodbye, according to a statement from Julien's Auctions.

Fifty years ago this week, the Beatles were all abuzz about opening for Roy Orbison. It was further proof of the band's “to the toppermost of the poppermost” trajectory. Orbison, who toured with the Beatles in Britain in May 1963, was one of the few Americans who had even heard of them.

WIRRAL management expert John MacCarfrae is encoring his unique Beatles-themed training course to deliver team building projects.

His Maverick Training company pioneered the course a decade ago and, with Liverpool University, developed an eLearning version in 2004. He built up an impressive client list throughout the UK and worked on translating the course into several other languages.

In Feb. 1963, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were sitting in the back of a tour bus, seeing if they could rise to the occasion. With ‘Please Please Me’ riding high on the British charts, producer George Martin had issued the Beatles’ budding songwriters a challenge: bring a new composition of equal quality to their next studio session.

Did you know?

1. Impossible as it may sound there are still Beatles songs unreleased - the most notable ones being Carnival of Light (an experimental piece recorded on 5 January 1967 for The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave) and a 27-minute jam of Helter Skelter. A John Lennon composition the three surviving Beatles worked on in the early '90s prior to the Anthology release called Grow Old with Me also remains unreleased.

2. The Beatles (or at least half of it) sang for the Rolling Stones: Lennon and Paul McCartney provided backing vocals to the 1967 single We Love You.

3. Besides writing hundreds of songs for the Beatles, Lennon and McCartney also wrote dozens of songs for other artistes such as From A Window (Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas), One and One Is Two (The Strangers with Mike Shannon), Step Inside Love and It's For You (Cilla Black), Come and Get It (Badfinger) and Woman (Peter and Gordon).

4. The Beatles’ third studio album A Hard Day’s Night is the only one to exclusively contain Lennon-McCartney compositions.

5. Paul is not McCartney's first name, James is. Lennon changed his middle name from Winston to Ono after marrying Yoko Ono in 1969

John Lennon Quote of the week

You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!